Ramesh okays Girnar ropeway

The Girnair Ropeway project stuck for over 15 years got environment sanction on Monday with Jairam Ramesh overruling the stiff objections from green activists regarding future of endangered long billed vultures. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Feb 7, 2011, 23:40:34 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Girnair Ropeway project stuck for over 15 years got environment sanction on Monday with Jairam Ramesh overruling the stiff objections from green activists regarding future of endangered long billed vultures.

The ropeway connects Bhavnath Taleti and Ambaji temple in Girnair Lion Sanctuary in Junagarh district of Gujarat and Ramesh said that it would minimize man-animal conflict and also provide viable transportation options.

"I have my serious concerns. We have already lost 99% of vulture population in India. And, I understand that this is the only viable vulture population in Gujarat," said Prerna Singh Bindra, member of the Standing Committee of National Board for Wildlife, which had objected to the project at its last meeting in January.

Ramesh had, however, decided that he would visit the project site and take a decision. "He (the minister) never told us that he was giving approval to the project," said another board member, requesting anonymity. "Our impression was that he will discuss his observations with us before taking the final call."

Ramesh said that six specific conditions have been imposed to protect local wildlife, including studying possibility of an alternative alignment, increasing the height of the towers to minimize impact of vultures and wildlife conservation cess on the ticket.

"The Girnari Giddh (vulture) population that is going to be affected by the ropeway project is between 20 to 25% of the total population of long-billed vultures in Gujarat but less than 10% of the population of vultures in the state," the minister said. There are more than one species of vultures in Gujarat.

Socially, Ramesh believes the project will end put an end to socially unacceptable modes of transportation (the dolis) that are being used presently.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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